


A Small Puzzle

by wisdomeagle



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffyverse
Genre: Alternate Universe, Escape from L.A., M/M, Watchers' Council
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-30
Updated: 2005-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-05 02:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wesley goes to England, drinks brandy, and saves the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Small Puzzle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [winter_rogue](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=winter_rogue).



> For winter_rogue in the [Escape From L.A. Ficathon](http://www.livejournal.com/users/versaphile/1256224.html)

"I'll have a curry, then." Wesley looked at his watch impatiently.

"And a pot of tea?"

"Yes, rather."

"And for the other gentleman?"

"The same," Wesley said. He relaxed when the waiter left. "My friend has excellent taste."

"Of course," Byron told him. "Down to business?"

Wesley felt his stomach turn over but masked it carefully. "I have news about the whereabouts of the second Slayer."

"Due, of course, to your relationship with the vampire Angelus. Or Angel, if you'd rather."

"Either way, I have information that will prove --"

"We already know," Byron said. "The curry here is quite excellent. I do hope you'll sample some -- on us, of course. We know your finances haven't exactly been, er, up to Council standards."

He had information that would be valuable to them -- he must have. He'd been working with Angel for two years. The boy. Surely the Council couldn't already know about Angel's son.

"As to Angel's son, of course, any information you have would be greatly appreciated."

"Of course," Wesley lied. "I fully intend to cooperate with the Council."

"Good, good. We're so pleased. And in exchange, we have a little puzzle for you."

Wesley knew the way the Council played; he'd once himself been part of this. The "little puzzles" that fifth years at the Academy were given, busywork the Watchers were too inept to do themselves. He half-expected that he'd be assigned the dreaded task of inventorying the library -- a task that could accurately be called a puzzle, since certain books had a habit of disguising themselves or being rearranged in the middle of the night -- the same task that Rupert Giles had escaped six years ago after Merrick's death.

Byron handed him a piece of paper covered in numbers. He wanted no part of the Council's games, but he couldn't help giving the paper a cursory glance. One, two, and three digit numbers, arranged evenly over the page. No obvious patterning or sequence -- "A cryptogram."

"Precisely."

Wesley felt a sudden pang of longing for Angel's way of doing things. Angel would give him the cryptogram to solve, of course, but he wouldn't be so _pompous_ about it. He wouldn't say, as Byron did, "Just a cunning little exercise sent to us anonymously. Probably nothing significant, but it seemed like the kind of thing you might be interested in." Angel was more likely to say, "Get working on this, Wes. We can't leave any stone unturned." Or rather, Angel would have said that six months ago. Now...

"In exchange for information about Connor?"

"It's only fair, is it not, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce? Oh, that reminds me!" Wesley could tell from the look in his eyes that Byron had just remembered the other Wyndam-Pryce, the one who hadn't returned to England with a scar on his neck and his tail between his legs, motorbike sold to play for the plane fare. "Your father was up from his estate just recently. You'll be wanting to see him, of course. Perhaps you could spend a few days down at the Borogroves, work over the little problem..."

Wesley would do no such thing and he knew it, suspected Byron knew it too. But he nodded cordially and left before the curry arrived. Spicy food disagreed with him, and he saw no reason to let the Council give him indigestion, not now.

Rather than head back to his hotel room, where he would be forced to consider his failures, Wesley went shopping. He didn't have the money for it, and wasn't really in the mood, but it was comforting to walk into shops where the owners talked properly, showing him leather jackets and cowboy boots, dining room furniture and crockery, and a pair of silver pistols that he longed to buy, dainty and precise. The owner of the shop took him to the back room to try them, and as he carefully placed two bullets through two targets, the manager let out a low, appreciative whistle.

"Would you like to work here, mate? You've got the aim for it. Could give demonstrations, and the like."

Wesley was almost tempted. He had left Sunnydale three years earlier to make a name for himself hunting demons, but now he had no ambition but survival, no hope of friendship or even heroism. He'd done his courageous deeds, saved his share of damsels in distress.

"Sir?" The shop owner looked at him uneasily. "Would you like a job?"

"I would," Wesley told him. "But not today. Not here. I have a puzzle to solve."

He stayed in London for no longer than he had to -- three days to complete the Council's interrogations about Connor, a subject he'd sooner forget, and another day to figure out where he was going. He finally stuck a pin at random into his slim notebook of British contacts, untouched for nearly five years. "Devon," he said aloud, looking around his room one more time to see if he had any belongings he'd forgotten about. "To Devon we shall go." He almost smiled.

He had forgotten what it meant to ride the train. In his rogue demon hunter days he'd traveled by motorcycle, most of the time with the spare helmet clanking against his knee. And in LA, he spent most of his transit time crawling through sewers or walking through unlit alleys -- a good strategy for hunting demons, but a bad one for getting other work done. The line to Devon was full mostly of countryfolk returning from a holiday in the city; he found himself seated opposite an old woman who knitted as if the country's supply of sweaters depended entirely on her. He spread his own work over his lap, staring at the numbers and, in spite of himself, becoming interested in the code.

The three hours to Copplestone Station passed more quickly for the work, though he made little progress. He didn't know of any demon tongues with 215 distinct characters, and suspected that the cryptogram was more complex than a simple substitution -- which was good, as far as he was concerned, because the more difficult the task, the less mental capacity he had to think about the unpleasant ending of his former life in Los Angeles.

There was no one to meet him in Crediton, no one to show him the way the outlying manors. He hailed a cab and felt the odd mix of sensations -- he had returned home, after all, but couldn't shake the feeling that home was thousands of miles away and sunny. A thin veil of rain hid the beauty of the countryside.

As he'd half-expected, the coven was masked by a simple spell, and his driver thought he was letting Wesley out into the middle of the woods, and drove away still muttering about the stupidity of city-dwellers. But when Wesley felt the damp air, his hand touched wood, and he rapped on it twice, quickly.

A tall, harsh woman answered the door, and her face didn't soften when she saw him. "Who?"

"I'm Wesley Wyndam-Pryce," he announced, and wished again he'd gone to the effort of adopting a shorter last name. "I'm here to see Octavia."

"She died three years ago. Good evening."

Before she closed the door, a man just an inch or so taller than she appeared from the dark corridor behind her. He carried a long torch in one hand and a book in the other, but even without the book, Wesley would have recognized him. "Mr. Giles."

"Show the damn fool in," Giles told the woman. "We can get rid of him in the morning."

With much eye rolling and an exaggerated flourish, the doorkeeper ushered Wesley into the hall. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw that the house was not quite so dark as he'd thought at first, nor quite so formal. He could hear laughter in several of the rooms adjoining, and he caught the faint but unmistakable odor of mildewing books.

"Wesley, come into the library," Giles said, walking briskly down the hall, not bothering to notice the odd, surrealist paintings that lined the walls. "I imagine you have a lot you want to talk about."

"Not really," Wesley said, taking a seat in Giles's library. Although the library in Sunnydale High had burned down many years ago, the sight of Giles's books was still unsettling. The last time he'd seen them, the circumstances had been less than pleasant.

"Why are you here? How did working with the vampire work out for you?"

"About as well as could be expected when working with the enemy," Wesley told him. "Have you got any brandy?"

Giles raised an eyebrow as he reached for the decanter. "You have changed. I didn't believe Cordelia when she told me."

"You've spoken with Cordelia?"

"Regularly, last year. She seemed to think that after the incident with Faith, it was -- prudent -- to keep in touch."

Wesley tried to hide his surprise, but he was worried. Cordelia had kept a great deal from them. Her medical condition, her contacts with Sunnydale... what else? He longed to call her, but dreaded it even more. Was she even back from her vacation yet? Had she learned of his betrayal

Giles was talking again. "But how is Angel? And Cordelia? I haven't spoken to her for months."

"They're all... quite well," Wesley finally said stiffly. "And... Buffy? The others?"

A pained look passed over Giles's face, and Wesley realized, suddenly, that he hadn't explained his absence from Sunnydale. "They're all well, I assume. I've just had a letter from Dawn -- she's getting a ninety in algebra."

Wesley nodded and took a sip of his brandy. The burn was delicious, but didn't loosen his tongue. For a quarter hour, neither man said anything. Giles seemed content to study the book he'd carried from the passage, and Wesley entertained himself by glancing around the high-ceilinged room, with its musty books and flickering torches, and the vaguest scent of something mystical and unsavory. It reminded him unpleasantly of his father's study, but Giles, reading peacefully, was not Roger Wyndam-Pryce. Father would still be talking to him; Father would want to know why he was here.

"The Council gave me a puzzle to work out," he finally said.

"I see."

"I didn't manage to crate up all my books -- most of them are sitting in my old flat in America, gathering dust. And a few of them have been, er, appropriated by Angel."

"Ah. Well, you are of course welcome to stay here as long as you feel is necessary."

Wesley frowned at Giles's sudden warmth. "If I'm not welcome, feel free to make me leave. I'll find someplace -- I always do."

"No, stay," Giles told him, standing up. "I'm nearly ready to turn in -- I'll introduce you to Miss Harkness over breakfast. For now, why don't you take the spare bed in the library?" He pointed to a staircase that seemed to lead straight up to the roof. "There's a liquor cabinet too -- help yourself."

Wesley suppressed a bitter laugh, but knew he would have at least one drink before he managed to fall asleep. He was fatigued and fragile, precariously close to remembering, and he was grateful when Giles finally left him to his solitude.

It didn't take him long to fall into a routine of translation and study. Giles dismissed his cryptogram as one of the Council's backlog of prophecies, which filled a whole hidden wing of their headquarters. "They give them to new recruits and to bored retirees. The real work is in the fields. Come hunting with me."

He did, occasionally. There was something peculiarly invigorating about tracking vampires with Giles -- something that reminded him more of the Theoretical Methods of Vampire Tracking course he'd sat at the Academy than the frightening exhilaration of hunting with Faith, the watchful stalking that was hunting with Angel, the boisterous adventure that was slaying with Gunn, ever had. He had been trained to hunt with other Watchers, not with dark creatures. With Giles, he was silent and quick, a half-step in front of his partner and alert to sudden movements. Giles had none of the advantages that Angel had, but he was good -- their kill count was around four a night, which wasn't bad at all for amateurs in a non-infested area.

But after too many hours spent patrolling silently, Wesley would fall into thought, and that would make his neck ache along his scar, and he would invariably remember being by Angel's side, and how he'd let that world slip away. So after a fortnight, he gave up entirely, left the vampires to Giles and focused on his prophecy, twisting it backwards and forwards to make some sense of it. At times a pattern of letters would fall into place and whole sections would suddenly make sense; at other times he'd have to admit a substitution he was sure about was wrong.

In the evenings, before patrol, Giles would join him in the library, taking tea while Wesley drank brandy or Scotch, and occasionally would lean over the armchair Wesley had adopted and examine his work. He never offered advice, for which Wesley was grateful. He felt almost like he was a recovering invalid, and Giles certainly acted like a nurse taking care not to disturb a volatile patient. Wesley's work was a sort of mental therapy. While he worked, he hadn't failed, hadn't lost Connor, hadn't been attacked. His throat was intact and Angel loved him. The letters clicked into place in his mind like bullets being loaded in a pistol.

"Why don't you join us for supper?" Giles asked. "Some of the witches are beginning to think you've got a dark secret. I hear rumors that you're quite a popular discussion for gossip."

Wesley smiled wryly. "I hardly think I'd be welcome, if they knew how dull my history really was." He didn't tell Giles that being among the witches made him long almost unbearably for Fred, that one of them wore perfume that matched Fred's scent so precisely he almost choked on it the first time she rushed past the library. "I wouldn't mind -- if you ate with me," he said.

Giles nodded but said nothing; three days later he ordered two suppers sent to the library, and they ate together in silence.

Three years was a long time to hold a grudge -- unless, Wesley supposed, you were Angel or one of his enemies -- but he wondered sometimes why Giles welcomed him so easily. When he tried to ask him -- about Sunnydale, about Faith, even about Buffy's kills, something he was usually proud of -- Giles usually changed the subject, or spoke evasively about "a difficult year." Giles received letters from Sunnydale once or twice, and always retreated into the depths of the library to read them.

Wesley got mail too -- a letter from his father that he shredded unread, and a telegram from the London branch of Wolfram &amp; Hart, forwarded from Lilah Morgan. "Bastard stop you got away stop Angel not well stop love Lilah stop." He frowned over that one for a long time, but eventually Lilah joined his father in the shredder.

Giles never asked him for more details about why he left America, and he never volunteered them.

The bulk of the decryption occurred in a single morning. Wesley hadn't slept well, but he'd faced his acres of paper regardless, propping a book on ancient Celtic languages open on Giles's favored armchair. And suddenly the letters and numbers had ceased to swim and started to float, to mean something. He worked steadily through the morning, and page after page of meaningful text piled up next to him. When Giles arrived, looking slightly hung-over from the Scotch they'd shared the night before, Wesley was nearly done.

Giles smiled slightly, found the first page on the bottom of Wesley's pile, and began to read. Wesley kept his eyes on his work, but noted whenever Giles finished one page and retrieved another. He was absorbed in the translation, though, and Giles had to clear his throat several times before he looked up.

"Wesley, I need to go."

"What?"

"To Sunnydale. Quickly. I think a great disaster is brewing there, and if these translations are accurate -- as I'm sure they are -- the catastrophe could strike at any moment."

"Oh. Does it pertain to --?"

"To Buffy and her friends," Giles said hurriedly, throwing down the papers and taking books off the shelves seemingly at random. "Can you be prepared for a teleportation spell in half an hour?"

Wesley nodded and got to his feet. "I'm sorry to leave so quickly," Giles told him. "But my duty lies in Sunnydale."

"I know."

"Your ridiculous assignment from the Council may have saved a young woman's life," Giles said. "But I need to hurry." Wesley folded his legs, sighed in discomfort as he did so, and brought to his mind the words he'd need for the spell. "Wait a minute," Giles told him. "Miss Harkins will need to assist, and I don't know when I'll be able to return. I fear I may be needed in Sunnydale for a long time to come." Wesley knew that Giles hoped this as much as he feared it, but he took a moment to realize that he'd miss him. "All right, stand up. We'll say farewell properly."

Wesley stood, his body held at an angle for a stiff embrace, but Giles rested his hands lightly on Wesley's shoulders and kissed him firmly, carefully, lovingly. Wesley felt himself responding to the kiss before he realized what had happened, and his hands dangled uselessly by his hips.

"Goodbye, Wesley. And thank you."

**Author's Note:**

> winter_rogue wanted slash, possibly Giles, but definitely not Lindsey, no ooc bashing of anyone, and a rifle/guns of some sort, spicy food, mention of the pink helmet and the motorcycle. As usual, I've totally flubbed all of those, but I hope she enjoys it anyhow.


End file.
